Unlike in other Moslem societies, among the Tuareg it's the men who wear veils. Like their North African Berber sisters, the women do not. And like them they proudly belong to a matriarchal society that gives women and men equal rights. In matters of inheritance and social status women’s rights are even superior. For example, while the child of a Tuareg nobleman and a woman of lower social status inherits the lower status, the child of a Noble Tuareg woman and a man of lower status, be him a black servant, inherits the noble status.

Also, while a man must provide for his family, a wife does not have to share her own wealth. And her husband may not frown on her for attending former suitors.

Ask a Tuareg why men hide their faces, and he will only say that it was always like that. Some authors have offered possible explanations. One that I remember reading had something to do with Tuareg women forcing their men to forever hide their faces behind a veil after a shameful battle loss. But why would all Tuareg men hide in shame, if so many of hem won many battles too?

Having lived among the Tuareg for nearly a year of repeated visits, three times for National Geographic alone, but also for two children’s books and while stopping in their camps for extended time during longer trans-African journeys, I have my own theory on this--for what it may be worth.

Twice, each time for a month, I journeyed with the Tuareg by camel, once on a salt caravan. To better mingle among them I adopted their dress. Face hiding behind the tagelmust, or veil, I inevitably appreciated its uses. It prevented my mouth from drying, and like sunglasses it toned down the glare of the sand. And of course it protected my face from sunburn.

So I imagine that, in ancient times, Tuareg men began veiling themselves on long marches in the desert. In these women took no part and had no need for the veil—much less so for religious reasons. Ages went by, and the veil became supremely important to the modest man. Elaborate custom governs its adjustment. And as is evident in the photos above, styles differ between tribes. Just as evident, when comparing Tuareg from different tribes, is that they have different origins. During the period I was photographing the Tuareg, no well-bred Tuareg removed his veil before women, old people, or strangers within his own society, least of all before his wife's parents. To eat and drink he would often pass spoon or bowl under it, besides eating apart from his family.

Colombia. Choco rain forest.
Atrato River. Man sitting in long red canoe in foreground is writing down the
quantity of plantain he is buying from a local farmer, and which he will resell
in Quibdo, a big town.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

When I asked that young girl standing
at the door of her stone house to let me take her picture, she turned to her
father and said : « The way I’m dressed for work will make me look
like a Chola (poor Indian).“ But she
graciously agreed. She was no Chola but a proud Morochuco, whose tribe claims, and
her blond braids and light eyes may confirm, to descend from Spanish
conquistadors.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Does
living naked make you a savage? Certainly not in the case of the Amazon’s
Yanomami Indians. But have a look at the images that follow, and decide whether
you see any naked savagery.

There
are savages in the Amazon, but they wear clothes.

Living
in yanos, or shabanos, communal houses sheltering up to 100 people, each family
around its own fire, the Yanomami have an equalitarian and perfectly organized
society. They look after their clans’ most vulnerable members and share with
everyone the game they hunt, keeping for themselves only the least attractive
parts. They raise their kids with as much love, but with more wonderful results
than many of us achieve. Their children are the happiest I have seen anywhere in
a life of foreign travel. And their teenagers would not even think of raising problems.

What
to my eyes prove the Yanomami’s great intelligence and right to sit at the
table of civilized people is their amazing sense of humor. While I shared their
lives for a month, they made me laugh every day.

Thanks
to Bruce Albert, a French anthropologist who speaks the Yanomami language, I always
knew what the Indians were saying or what they were planning. So I never missed a funny remark or a great photo
opportunity. Bruce has dedicated his adult life to study and help protect the
Yanomami against predatory and criminal outsiders.

There
was a third man with Bruce and I among the Yanomami. Robin Hanbury-Tenison,
British explorer and author of many books, he also was, and is, the founder of
Survival International, a charity dedicated, with impressive results, to the defense of tribal people’s
rights. In 1982 Time-Life Books had assigned the three of us, each one in his
own specialty, to produce one of the books of their People of the Wild series. It would be titled Aborigines of the Rain Forest: the Yanomami. The book sold out
within a few months.

Bruce
told me that our Yanomami friends had given us totems, all based on their keen observations
of us. Mine was Tapir. For three reasons.

1 - Because
the tapir is the forest’s biggest animal. I was big next to them.

2 - Because
the tapir never sleeps.” (I hit my hammock later than them, photographing them resting around their family fires. To do so I also got up before
dawn. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night to switch on my
flashlight and jot down some notes).

3 - Because
the tapir can turn into thunder. This was about my good-heartedly loud laugh, which the many
residents around the yano apparently enjoyed and never failed to acknowledge by
always echoing it, though on a much higher pitch).

But
back to clothes-wearing savages. Contrary to the Yanomami, who live very happy
lives with no interest in money and what it can buy, those other men are criminally
greedy. So much so that, if allowed, they would happily kill every one of the
20,000 Yanomami living on both sides of the Brazil-Venezuela border to take
possession of their land. And they have already killed many. And they have also
burned down vast stretches of the Amazon
forest.

Those
savages are gold miners and owners of businesses dealing in large-scale logging,
cattle rearing, and agriculture—all of them illegally.

Peru. Andes Mountains near
Ayacucho. Pampa de Cangallo. Morochuco girl, a descendent of the followers of
the conquistador Diego de Almagro. After Pizarro ordered the decapitation of
Almagro, who had fought him over the governorship of Cuzco and its Inca gold,
those followers hid among the Incas and married into the tribe.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Bolivia. Potosi. In the
bowels of Cerro Rico. Mined for silver since Inca times, and now for tin, this
mountain, which dominates Potosi, is dangerously drilled through by countless
galleries, many long lost to minds and eyes until new galleries crash through
them. Though the air outside is frigid, the heat inside is such that I was able
to observe miners inside tiny cavities work while being sprayed with the cold
water of a hose.

Signed Prints

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